


No Memory Can Darken the Heart

by thoughtfullightcollection



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Bullying, Depression, Derogatory Language, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 06:06:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16080017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtfullightcollection/pseuds/thoughtfullightcollection
Summary: Dan's history with makeup. It's not always pretty.





	No Memory Can Darken the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags.
> 
> This is fiction and the author has no real idea what Dan's relationship with his family is like so don't take it seriously.

**Dan is six years old.**

 

He’s alone in his house, his parents at work, his little brother at nursery school. He’s alone a lot. His mother tells him that he’s old enough to take care of himself after school. His father tells him to stay away from the stove and not to let any strangers into the house while his parents are away.

 

He’s lonely a lot, no one to play school, or cops and robbers, or house with. He plays house by himself though. He pretends that he lives in a nicer house than the one his family currently occupies, with maybe a nicer family. Like his friend Geoff’s family, where his mum is always there to meet him at the door after school and make him a snack like Geoff’s mum, where his dad plays on the PlayStation with him after he gets off work like Geoff’s dad, where his little brother isn’t the one who gets all the stupid attention in the house and Dan is important. He feels kind of bad when he does it, but it also makes him feel good to pretend.

 

Today he’s doing something he’s not meant to do and he’s going through the things on his mother’s dresser. He’s not supposed to go into his parent’s bedroom when they aren’t home, but they won’t be home for hours and his homework is done, and he’s beaten the game he’s been playing for the past week, and he’s so bored he thinks he might die from it. His grandma says that he’s a  _dramatic child_ and he’s not sure what that means. He just feels what he feels and says it. He hasn’t learned not to, yet.

 

Anyway, today he’s exploring forbidden territory and he’s looking through his mother’s things. He hasn’t played dress up in ages and all these things are making him want to. He picks up the brush and powder he’s seen his mother use in the mornings when she’s getting ready for work and he looks into the large mirror over the dresser and he hesitates for a moment.

 

His dad says that boys don’t wear makeup, that it’s not _manly_ , and Dan isn’t sure what it means to be a man, he’s still only a kid after all, but he’s certain that wanting to look pretty won’t make a difference will it?

 

Carefully, tongue between his teeth and brow furrowed in concentration, he dips the brush in the pot of powder and, lifting his eyes to the mirror, he raises the brush to his cheek and applies color there. He’s awkward with it, and messy, but he likes the color and the way it looks on his skin, so he follows his mother’s example and adds color to his other cheek. Trying to even things out makes more of a mess, but he’s having fun now, his eyes bright and shiny in the mirror as he goes through the rest of his mother’s makeup.

 

When he’s done he looks in the mirror a final time and thinks he looks beautiful. It’s a word Dan’s heard his father call his mum and it always makes her do the laugh that sounds like bells, high pitched and happy, and Dan wants to be happy. He so rarely feels happy, he’s so alone all the time. But looking in the mirror now he feels like he could do the laugh like bells and he feels warmth in his tummy and it’s so good.

 

When his father gets home from work Dan runs to the door to greet him and watches his father’s face cloud over, watches as his father clenches his jaw and the muscle in his cheek twitches like it did when Dan accidentally knocked over Mrs. Davis while he was on his skateboard that one time. And when his father wordlessly points to the bathroom door Dan feels the warmth in his stomach turn to ice and he doesn’t think he’ll feel like doing the bell laugh ever again.

 

**Dan is sixteen years old.**

 

He’s made it to secondary school alive despite his absentee parents and the bullies that have plagued him for a decade. He’s soft, and kind, and sweet, and smart, and he never realized that when his grandma said he was a _dramatic child_ she meant he was too loud and too emotional. He wishes that he had. He wishes that someone had told him to hide his tender heart and true feelings when he was small because it would have saved him so much heartache over his short lifetime.

 

 Turns out that being soft makes you a target for people to aim their anger and hurt and cruelty toward because they think that crushing you will make them feel better. Of course, Dan knows now that being kind and loving doesn’t automatically make you weak, but he sure as hell wishes he didn’t have to be so strong all the damn time.

 

Today someone threw a knife at him in art class.

 

Yesterday someone threw stones at him and his friends in the park.

 

They toss insults too. They call him a gaylord, they call him stupid, and ugly, and so many other things that he can’t even stand to think much less say out loud. He doesn’t understand how they can be the way they are, doesn’t understand how they can be so heartless when his heart is so big, when he feels so much. Doesn’t understand why he’s always been a target for them when he’s never hurt anyone.

 

But he’s not going to be a target anymore. He’s grown out his hair and straightened it, so they can’t make fun of his curls. He’s started dressing in black, so they can’t say his clothes are “gay”. And he’s in his mother’s bedroom now, standing in front of his mother’s dresser again, looking through her things, and gives an excited little “aha” when he finds what he’s been looking for among them.

 

Black eyeliner. He’d seen guys around, wearing all black and eye makeup like this, and people had left them alone. Dan desperately wants to be left alone.

 

There’s soft popping sound when he uncaps the eyeliner and he makes a bit of a mess of it when he tries to put it on. He’ll get better he thinks, looking in the mirror over the dresser, with practice. He likes the way it looks, he thinks it makes him look tougher, that maybe it’ll hide the fear in his eyes next time the stones come his way.

 

It’ll disappoint his father, of course, but Dan’s been doing that since he was 6 years old and he’s tried to stop caring.

 

Dan hears his brother calling him from the other room to come play a video game Dan’s already beaten. Twice. But his brother thinks Dan’s an  _expert_ and if there’s one person that he’s certain he never wants to disappoint, it’s his kid brother.  

 

**Dan is twenty-six years old.**

 

He’s sat in a backstage dressing room, bright lights from the mirror in front of him making him wince a bit, and the woman applying powder to his face makes a tutting sound and tells him to hold still if he doesn’t want it to get everywhere.

 

Dan can’t see him, but he knows that his partner is in the chair beside his, having his makeup applied as well. Phil. His name is Phil and he’s the best thing in Dan’s life. The life that he and Dan have made together. The life with the flat and the houseplants and the scented candles and the sickest baths ever. The life with the depression and the anxiety and the dark places in Dan’s mind where the bullies still go about their work sometimes. The life with friends and family and the promise of a dog and a forever home. This life, where they’re waiting out the last few minutes before they go on stage to perform a show they’ve written together in front of a crowd they can already hear cheering for them.

 

Dan is full of nervous energy, bouncing on his tiptoes, walking about in circles, cracking his knuckles. Phil is nervous, too, but he does this thing-they do this thing-where they balance each other out. It’s automatic now, nine years in the making, if one is fidgety the other is still. Two halves of a whole. The fifth time Dan circles around Phil though, he’s had enough and does what he knows will stop Dan in his tracks. It works every single time, but he doesn’t do overdo it. He’s told Dan, grinning, that he means it and doesn’t want to lessen its impact by telling him all the time.

 

 “Dan”, he says quietly, “you look beautiful.”

 

And Dan does the tinkly bell laugh, high pitched and bright, like he always does when Phil tells him this. Then he takes Phil’s hand and he holds it until the curtain goes up.

**Author's Note:**

> Title (because I'm the worst at titles) is from Perfume Genius "Normal Song"


End file.
